THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 369 



meaty enough in flesh to keep and ship well ; fine in flavor though not quite 

 equalling some others of its group in this character. The trees are large, 

 hard}-, vigorous and healthy, remarkable for their broad, glossy, abxindant 

 leaves, bear bovmtiful crops annually and at a favorable period of maturity. 

 Washington thus has a combination of characters which few of its group, 

 with which only it must be compared, possess. The variety, however, 

 is not without defects; the fruits are subject to brown-rot, so much so 

 that its value as a commercial variety is greatly lessened; the quality 

 varies greatly in different locations and even in different years, — the latter 

 very noticeable on the Station grounds; the trees are slow in coming in 

 bearing and the crops are small for some years after fruiting begins. From 

 the above considerations it may be seen that while this variety is almost 

 always worth planting in a home collection, the location for it as a com- 

 mercial fruit needs to be chosen with some care. 



There are two accoimts of the origin of this variety. William Prince 

 gives its history as follows (References, i): "It has always been the 

 custom at the establishment of the author, at Flushing, to plant annually 

 the seeds of the finest fruits, for the purpose of originating new varieties; 

 and, about the year 1790, his father planted the pits of twenty-five quarts 

 of the Green Gage plum; these produced trees yielding fruit of every 

 colour; and the White Gage, Red Gage, and Prince's Gage, now so well 

 known, form part of the progeny of those plums; and there seems strong 

 presumptive evidence to suppose that the Washington Plum was one of 

 the same collection." Michael Floy gives a different history of the Wash- 

 ington (References,5). He states that he received the variety in 181 8 from 

 a Mr. Bolmar of New York who in turn had purchased his trees from a 

 market woman in 1814. The purchased trees were produced as suckers 

 from the roots of a Reine Claude tree which had been killed below the 

 graft by lightning on the Delancey farm, now the Bowery, in New York 

 City. In 1819, a few of the trees, budded the previous year by Floy, were 

 sent to England. The American Pomological Society added the Washing- 

 ton to its fruit catalog list in 1852. Taking in consideration the evidence 

 of other writers and further facts offered in other accounts by the Princes, 

 father and son, it seems almost certain that the first history is correct and 

 that Bolmar's trees had their origin in the Prince nursery. 



Tree large, vigorous, round and open-topped, hardy, very productive; branches 

 dark ash-gray, rough becoming shaggy on the trunk, with small lenticcls; branchlets 

 below medium in thickness and length, with long intemodes, green changing to brownish- 



